A federal jury has convicted Victor Kensington Colbert Jr. of two counts of bank fraud for submitting fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan applications in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Colbert, who ran the Oklahoma Heartland Heroes Foundation from 2018 until 2022, applied for and received two PPP loans and one Economic Injury Disaster Loan advance during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the pandemic-related loans totaling $217,490.
According to KOKH, Colbert submitted the loan documents to Tulsa Federal Credit Union and received more than $217,000 in pandemic relief funds. An unsealed indictment had previously identified Colbert as the owner and operator of Heartland Heroes, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Northern District of Oklahoma.
Fake Payroll Records and Unpaid Employees
Prosecutors say Colbert submitted fraudulent and unfiled tax documents claiming the foundation had paid payroll taxes. But employees of the Oklahoma Heartland Heroes Foundation testified that Colbert never actually paid them, according to the station's report.
The Justice Department's Northern District of Oklahoma announced in a separate release that a federal jury convicted Colbert of two counts of bank fraud tied to his fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan applications, though the full underlying case file was not made available.
Prosecutors React to the Verdict
Christopher Nassar said the conviction demonstrates that fraud against American taxpayers will be held accountable, adding that Colbert exploited a relief program and undermined its integrity. John T. Perez said those who defraud the federal government of pandemic relief funds will be held accountable and brought to justice, and he thanked the U.S. Attorney's Office for its efforts leading to the result.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Pandemic Fraud
Colbert's case fits into a wider pattern of pandemic relief fraud prosecutions across Oklahoma. In one case, Olabode Nurudeen Jimoh of Yukon pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison, ordered to pay $484,266 in restitution, after submitting fraudulent applications for one EIDL and five PPP loans in April 2020 by misrepresenting his businesses' income, payroll, and employees, as reported by okcfox.com.
Another Oklahoma defendant, Kingsley Tazinya, pleaded guilty to bank fraud and was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison, ordered to pay $564,500 in restitution, after obtaining $249,600 through a fraudulent PPP application, per the same outlet. That crackdown reportedly targeted 160 suspects between June 12 and September 1, reaching approximately $245 million in intended losses to American taxpayers.
The scale of fraud tied to pandemic relief programs has drawn scrutiny from federal watchdogs. An oversight estimate put potentially fraudulent COVID-19 EIDL and PPP loans at more than $200 billion, according to oversight.gov.
